Educational reference
About this symptom
Worry becomes a clinical concern less because of its subject than because of its persistence, its breadth, and how hard it is to interrupt.
In generalised anxiety, worry occurs on most days, moves between several areas of life rather than fixing on one, and is difficult to set aside even when the person recognises it as disproportionate. It is often described as running in the background, and as demanding attention that would otherwise go elsewhere.
This differs from ordinary anticipation of a specific stressful event, which resolves once the event passes, and from the focused fear seen in phobias or panic. It also differs from rumination in depression, which tends to look backwards at what has already happened rather than forwards at what might.
Worry of this kind is exhausting, and it commonly brings physical accompaniments: tension, restlessness, disturbed sleep and difficulty concentrating.